Each successive season it seems that starting pitchers put in less innings in baseball games while bullpens take up more of the workload. In fact, last season, bullpens put in 2.82 innings of work per game for each team. Taking into account home teams most often don’t even hit in their half of the ninth inning, that means that relief pitchers represent just about one-third of the pitching action in any given game. So why is it then that oddsmakers’ lines continue to be so predicated on starting pitching?

Public perception is the primary theory? The public bettor hates to fade the Randy Johnson’s or Johan Santana’s of the world, two of the more commonly known pitchers associated with larger money lines. The public often errs in assuming that the better the starting pitcher, the better the team, when in fact it is usually quite the opposite in terms of line value. As evidence, two of the best starting pitchers during the 2005 season were Livan Hernandez of Washington and Jon Garland of the Chicago White Sox. Neither of those are names were commonly referred to in terms of Cy Young awards before last year, but each did well because of being backed by a solid, scrappy ballclub, with a bullpen ranked in the league’s top 10.

The truly savvy handicappers have come to realize that bullpens can be as much or more influential than the starters. Without fully diminishing the role of the starting pitcher, make sure to not overemphasize his role. As mentioned earlier, they represent only two-thirds of the game’s pitching, and with so many games decided in the late innings, the bullpens have to be accounted for. In fact, of the top 25 starting pitchers for 2005, less than 20% of them averaged more than 7 innings pitched per start.

From a statistical standpoint, my own personal favorite stats to analyze bullpens by are ERA (Earned Run Average) and WHIP (Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched). As you’ll see from the numbers below, the three top teams in the league in Bullpen ERA in 2005 all poduced double-digit money returns in the regular season. The top ten teams in this key stats combined for +41.07 net units of profit, and a winning percentage of 54.2%. Meanwhile, the bottom ten teams in Bullpen ERA netted –73.94 units of loss for their backers throughout the campaign, while winning just 46.8% of their games. Clearly it behooves the baseball enthusiast to be tracking bullpen stats as often as possible.

Here is a quick look at those top and bottom teams of 2005, in terms of Bullpen ERA:

TOP 10 BULLPEN TEAMS, ERA, (ML Units)
1. CLEVELAND, 2.83 (93-69 +10.4 units)
2. ST LOUIS, 3.18 (100-62 +10.1 units)
3. CHI WHITE SOX, 3.23 (99-63 +23.8 units)
4. MINNESOTA, 3.24 (83-79 -8.1 units)
5. OAKLAND, 3.43 (88-74 +5.3 units)
6. SAN DIEGO, 3.49 (82-80 -7.25 units)
7. ANAHEIM, 3.53 (95-67 +10.65 units)
8. SEATTLE, 3.6 (69-93 -18.45 units)
9. WASHINGTON, 3.61 (81-81 +6.97 units)
10. HOUSTON, 3.65 (89-73 +7.65 units)

BOTTOM 10 BULLPEN TEAMS, ERA, (ML Units)
21. LOS ANGELES, 4.42 (71-91 -24.9 units)
22. ATLANTA, 4.74 (90-72 +5.56 units)
23. CINCINNATI, 4.82 (73-89 -7.35 units)
24. COLORADO, 4.83 (67-95 -11.05 units)
25. TEXAS, 4.85 (79-83 -4.95 units)
26. KANSAS CITY, 4.88 (56-106 -17.2 units)
27. FLORIDA, 4.93 (83-79 -15.35 units)
28. TAMPA BAY, 5.04 (67-95 +2.85 units)
29. BOSTON, 5.15 (95-67 +4.55 units)
30. ARIZONA, 5.5 (77-85 -6.1 units)

It is important to note that this is not a seasonal thing or a trend. Again, each successive season seems to confirm it more and more. As proof, most of the best StatFox Super Situations or Baseball Handicapping Systems from prior years are reflective of playing with teams that have strong bullpens and against those who do not. Here are some examples of that:

From the FoxSheets Midseason Baseball Handicapping Summary:
• System #294: Play on Any Team with More Composite StatFox Stars, a better batting average (.010 min), and better bullpen WHIP (.100 min). – 70-29 record, 24.3% ROI : While obviously this system depends upon a pair of other key ingredients, it is one of three major factors that went into a system that produced a very healthy 24%+ return.
• System #235: Play on Any Home Team with a better bullpen WHIP – 267-231 record, 8.4% ROI. : A very simple system that produces a better return on investment than most stocks or mutual funds.

These are three of the top bullpen related StatFox Super Situations, taken straight from the FoxSheets:
• Play Against all underdogs with a money line of +100 or higher - poor AL hitting team (AVG <=.260) against a team with a very good bullpen (ERA <=3.33) – 79-24 record since ’96, 76.7% : Triple whammy here if you will. Poor hitting team is probably facing a better starting pitcher, thus the underdog role, and has to face a strong bullpen on top of that.
• Play Against any team with a poor bullpen whose WHIP is 1.550 or worse on the season against opponent with a starting pitcher whose ERA is 5.20 to 5.70 on the season (NL) – 149-88 record since ’96, 62.8%: Illustrates just how important it is to have a better bullpen, even against a weak opponent starting pitcher
• Against - Road teams - after a game where they stranded 3 or less runners on base, with a struggling bullpen whose WHIP is over 2.000 the last 5 games – 107-49 record since ’96, 68.6%: This road team is playing efficiently on offense but still can’t make up enough for its struggling pen.

The moral of the story for the rest of the year is to start taking a close look at the teams on the top of the bullpen list in good line value spots on a daily basis while trying to avoid, or even fade those on the bottom 10 list. You’ll see the difference in your bankroll as the season wears on. Make sure to check the transactions list from this past offseason on the team preview pages for any changes that teams might have made since October in an effort to upgrade their relief pitching. Then visit StatFox.com or FoxSheets.com regularly throughout the campaign for daily updates and other baseball handicapping theory articles.